.....change

Yogis,

For the past couple of months I have been circling around in a stuck space. You know that feeling?  Same old, same old.  Knowing there is something more but not able to get it going. A little stagnant. I began asking the Universe for a little kick in the butt. A gentle, or not so gentle push from behind. 

A few weeks later I led a Goddess workshop and we each picked a card to see which of the goddess energies was calling each of our names. I picked the goddess Oya, an African goddess of weather, storms and transformation.  Her message …….change.

Change? That is exactly what I wasn’t feeling. I mustn’t have picked the right card. Oh well. As my head went back down and I plodded along. 

Friday night in yoga class there were three large signs hung on the walls for an upcoming teacher training.  One was the twelve laws of transformation.  I watched it as I practiced, seeing it as I reached down for my leg in triangle, reading it upside down while in headstand. Opening my eyes to it after savasana.  Number seven kept drawing me in.  ‘Relax with What is’. 

Relax with what is…..  I suddenly visualized myself lying back into the river of my life. Floating with the current instead of trying to swim upstream. Dropping what ‘should be’ to take time with ‘what is’.  And with that everything suddenly became so much clearer. Not only do I have change, I am completely submerged in it.

I am currently traveling through life in a menopausal body. One that appears to change daily, in fact hourly at times. My mirror and I don’t recognize it and I have been resisting. Longing for the body I had come to know. But a deep knowing that this is a gift and not wanting to have it pass by without hearing its messages. Relax with what is….

My youngest son moved out on Saturday.  Although we were empty nesters while he was in college, we really weren’t. This time we are. His room empty of his clothes and posters, with only childhood knick-knacks and trophies sitting alone on the floor with the dust bunnies. A door has closed. Relax with what is……

The company where I have worked for 33 years was split in two on January 1^st, with tremendous reorganization in people and processes.  We are all now trying to regain our footing.  Where are we headed. What is our purpose. Who has the answers. Consistent challenges. Relax with what is…….

And my passion for teaching and writing has felt bound by the constraints of time, and by fear.  Holding a vision of more but allowing doubt to fog the path. Let go. Relax with what is……

Transformation is what I am seeking.  Change is the constant that underlies it.  I am going to give in to Oya who ‘storms into your life’.  I am going to try swimming with change and allow myself to be tossed about.  Seeing now that change is the gateway and only by embracing it can my visions be realized. And knowing without a doubt that they will. As and when they should.

So I must also keep repeating law number nine…’Don’t Rush the Process’.   Always a challenge for me.

No note next week as I will be practicing by floating on my back in the Caribbean.  Stay tuned for a note when I return introducing ‘Planting Seeds of Intention’  - a month long meditation and visioning program that will begin on the first day of spring, March 20!

Feeling lighter,
SARAH

......life's backpack

Yogis,

Our town has a local email listserv where people post items for sale, the need for a nanny, recommendations for local trades people and an occasional lost dog.  It is also a way to let the neighbors know if there have been any recent issues.This week someone posted that a few cars had been ransacked one evening with small electronics, loose change and a gym bag taken. A heads up.

We live in an extremely safe town where this is pretty much the extent of our crime.  Over the 30 years I have lived here this seems to happen about every 5 or 6 years. Lately, however, the time span between events has been shortening.

There was some bantering back and forth for all to see, with someone then questioning if the cars had been locked.  Here was the response: 

“I am willing to bet they were unlocked cars.  If you leave your car unlocked, anything stolen is your problem.  Don't bother the police (or your neighbors).”

Now, to be fair, I believe perhaps it was intended for only the person with the question, but you know that darn ‘reply all’ button can be a serious foe.  In either case, I know deep down many people feel this same way.  But that underlying belief is one that has never set well with me. 

I don’t lock my car. Never have. A few months ago I could tell that someone had been in it overnight.  Nothing was taken because I choose not to leave anything of value in it. But to me, the issue is not that I left my car open, but that someone felt they had to come here specifically to go in it. I should be able to have my car unlocked on my property. And if someone takes the few dollars I have in there for emergencies or to give to the homeless on corners….so be it. It remains unlocked.

Lately as I run our streets I have been noticing that more and more houses have security system signs posted out front.  Fifteen years ago I don’t believe there was even one. But as the old houses are bulldozed and much larger homes erected, the new open spaces within them require many more things to fill them. Many more things that then require much more protection. The visual alone of all of these security signs implies that we now have stuff someone might want to take. And on it goes…….

It has gotten me thinking about stuff.  All of the stuff we have. The more attached we become, the deeper the fear of losing it.What are we without all of our belongings? I refer to it as the burden of carrying life’s backpack. 

In class last week I introduced the goddess Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the goddess of abundance and her message is that there is enough for everyone. Enough food, prosperity, love. That even if someone were to take what I had, I would never be without. By the very act of attaching to and holding objects as ‘mine’, a block is created which impedes the wondrous flow through of life.  Bringing in…….then letting go.

I was watching a video that a friend shared on the beauty of pollination. Hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, bats and spectacular flowers.  But what hit me was how free they all were. Traveling completely unburdened. No backpacks for them! We are the only ones who spend our lives gathering belongings, working to keep them, and then leaving our children to figure out what the heck to do with them when we are gone.  

I don’t pretend to have an answer here. Only a life feeling tone that I lean in to which I wanted to share.  It’s one of the reasons I don’t have expensive jewelry, sterling silver or precious antiques. If anyone were to break into my home they would leave empty handed, unless they needed an extra yoga mat.  here is nothing anyone can take from me that would leave me feeling I have less.

Everything we seek is within,
SARAH

.....the hum

Yogis,

If you were to ask me to visualize February, my mind would immediately see gray, barren landscape with the sides of the roads edged in brown snow. Hard frozen ground and the quiet that comes when the birds rest. 

Instead this week as I walked into my front yard I was greeted by this……

Hello dandelion! I guess you didn’t check your calendar. You are a little early to the party. 

But she wasn’t alone.  The crocus’s down the street are all in bloom, daffodil greens have poked their heads above  ground and I have been meditating to the singing of some song birds. They must all know something that we don’t. 

The Universe has a hum. A beautiful rhythm that nature keeps time with. The trees and the moon don’t need the alarm clock or the appointment reminder pop up that we have become tied to for our every move. They listen, feel and move as one. Gracefully and with ease. Early humans and even the Native Americans here lived life that way. Up with the sun, the growing  and harvesting of food guided by the phases of the moon, listening for guidance from the animals and resting when the stars arrived. 

We too can find nature’s tune and return to flowing in harmony with its dance of life. One easy way to begin is to form a relationship with the moon - the Goddess. With her cycles. Always knowing where she is and therefore which energy she is guiding us to awaken. 

It all begins with the new moon. The day when the moon rises in the east right alongside the sun.  Together as partners they travel through the day together so that we can never see her through the blaze of the sun, leaving us with a deep dark night as they both set in unison. The new moon is a time of rest. A chance for looking inward.  Noticing where you are and uncovering what you would like to manifest in the upcoming month. The new moon is the low tide, the night, winter, birth. The season of winter. The beginning.

Then each day the moon rises about an hour later, trailing the sun and creating more space between them, the moon first appearing as a crescent and becoming larger each day. The waxing moon.  Growing in both size and energy.  Her message to us  is to move forward.  Start new projects, try out new ideas……create!  The energy of spring and the freshness of the early morning. Expansion. Filling. Bringing in. Childhood.The maiden.

Until she is full.  On this day she rises in the east just as the sun falls behind the horizon in the west.  This is when she…and we….are most powerful.  Brilliant with her energy and light. Fertile. Sensual.  Re-energized. A time to gather. To dance and sing. A time to show gratitude for all that we have and all we have created. The energy of the high tide, summer and noon.  Adulthood. The mother. 

She then begins to rise later and later into the night. The waning moon. The autumn. Here she asks us what it is we are ready to let go of.  What no longer serves us that we can begin to clear out to make space. Time to slow down and listen. Old age. The wise woman. As the moon and the sun again become closer and closer until they once again meet at the new moon. Death. Only to begin yet again.  

The tides, the garden and a woman’s cycle are all in her flow. By looking to the skies each night we can become like the dandelion. Hearing the hum and heeding its call.

Bowing to the Goddess,
SARAH

......nothing

Dear Yogis,

My visiting cousin asked me last night when she arrived back  “what did you do today? “ Nothing.  I actually did nothing……… How often can you say that?

It’s February.  Not a lot going on. This weekend and next held blank space on the calendar so I consciously chose to do nothing yesterday. Zero plans.  Zippo.  No ‘to-dos’.  And I watched. 

Alarm went off at 6:19 to meditate. Did my usual 30 minutes, then laid back down and drifted in and out of a dreamlike state until I felt ready to open my eyes. Rolling over I looked at the clock – 9:01.  Wow!

Bundling up I decided to take Phoebe for a run even though it was 25 degrees. Headed out to weave through the neighborhood streets but heard the river calling and thought, why not. So down we went.  The sky a perfect blue and the air so clear and crisp. A flock of geese huddled together for warmth as the trees watched us all. We paused to take it in.

Back home I sipped tea while I worked on my jigsaw puzzle.  For two hours……  Each winter I do a 1000 piece puzzle. Usually a challenging one and  I noticed yesterday how present you must be to do a puzzle.  Focused, aware, patient. I watched as my mind would suggest that I should check Facebook.  Or, that this would be a good time to pay all of those bills on your desk. Each time I exhaled….and went back to the puzzle. Choosing being over doing.

My sister called and I could curl up on the chair and talk for ½ hour without any sense of what I should be doing.  A long shower followed by a leisurely walk through the woods where Phoebe could run free.  Sixty four minutes of walking, my phone informed me.  I should head back and start dinner.  I exhaled and instead watched my dog, who was a deer in her past life by the way, run like the wind and hurdle downed trees with grace and ease.  Arriving back I curled up on the couch with my book. My cousin returns and we sit and laugh late into the night.

Yesterday was my extended pause between breaths.  The void. The space of nothing. 

Let's try this together.  First get yourself grounded and settle into your chair. Draw your spine upward and become aware of your breath. The sense of rising and filling as the inhale traces a line up through the center of your body, and the feeling of letting go, becoming heavy as the exhale traces the line back down. And then there it is. A pause. After each and every exhale there exists a most magical pause.  Close your eyes and watch this. 

That pause is still and quiet.  Empty and deep. Yet while it contains nothing, it is the source of everything. The source of your next inhale, your next thought, your next action. It is the hush of winter. Our deep sleep at night.  The dark of the new moon and that suspended moment in time where the low tide releases itself to flow of the incoming tide. Watch it……feel it. 

In my breath work I gradually lengthen this pause. Arriving in it and staying a while, tapping into its power.  Yesterday I lived in it for the whole day! A conscious choice to swim in the sea of pure potential. 

I know, I know…..I can’t do that, I am too busy….the kids….the events…..the email…..work…… blah, blah, blah.  Perhaps you can’t do a whole day, but what about an hour?  What about 15 minutes?  What about closing your eyes and arriving in the pause between breaths for 5 minutes? Or even 5 breaths……..Each moment there will give you two back. What was created from my extended pause? New ideas, connections, awareness of where I am in life. A slowing of my breath.

And during an evening walk I heard it rise from the still dark quiet. The hoot of the owl in our woods. They have returned. Thank you Universe!

My bills can be paid tomorrow,

SARAH